PARIS — Founder of the French far-right wing party National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, died on Tuesday in France, aged 96, reported Bernama-Xinhua, citing French news channel BFMTV.
Jean-Marie Le Pen co-founded in 1972 the National Front party which has been known as the National Rally since 2018.
He was president of the far-right wing party until 2011 when he was succeeded by his daughter, Marine Le Pen. Later, he was expelled from the party for repeated remarks that downplayed the Holocaust.
His daughter Marine, after taking over as party chief, had distanced herself from her father’s controversial and racist remarks for which the French courts had convicted him several times under the country’s hate speech and anti-semitism laws.
In his long political career, Jean-Marie entered the presidential runoff in 2002 against the then French president Jacques Chirac.
Jean-Marie’s critics on the left had described him as bigoted and hateful over his anti-immigration and anti-semitic stance.
BBC quoted leader of the radical left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon saying that respecting the dead and the family’s grief “does not cancel out the right to judge their actions”.
“The struggle against the man is over…against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism that he spread, continues.”
Marine’s successor in the party, Jordan Bardella, meanwhile, described the late leader as one who had “always served France” and “defended its identity and sovereignty”.
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his condolences to the Le Pen family, adding “history will judge” Jean-Marie’s controversial role in the country’s politics. – January 8, 2025